Potion Commotion
by easytodancewith
Summary: Alex/Justin. A love potion meant for Alex's crush gets into the hands of her brother. The dialogue in the first scenes was taken practically verbatim from episode 11, season 1, which this fic was named after but obviously develops quite differently from.


Justin and Alex burst through the doors of the Sub Station after school, mid-conversation and chattering loudly. "I still have to write an essay so I'll get chosen to go to the World School Summit at the U.N.," Justin informs her loftily.

"Yeah, once you said 'essay,' all I heard was 'blah blah blah blah blah,'" his sister responds with a roll of her eyes. She rests her backpack on one of the chairs in front of the cash register. "Okay, let's talk about _my_ day – like this guy who thinks of me as a friend, but not for long. I have a plan!"

"Fascinating," Justin says drily. "Back to me: I'm competing against this kiss-up who has no right being chosen for the World School Summit."

"Seriously, you have to make your stories more interesting because all I'm hearing is 'blah blah blah blah blah…'" With that, Alex walks past her brother into the back room. Justin frowns and follows, almost colliding with their mother, who is coming out of the supplies room with a huge box.

"Hey, mom!" Alex chirps.

"Hi, kids," Teresa responds, sounding frazzled. When neither of them make a motion to help her, she continues, "It's okay, I've got this," with exactly the right brand of sarcasm in her tone to make it obvious she doesn't.

Oblivious, Alex resumes the conversation. "Here's my plan: This guy and I have always gone out in a group as friends, never just the two of us, but there's this concert in Central Park and we're going as friends but coming back as boyfriend and girlfriend." She's surveying the clientele through the hatch as she speaks, and suddenly squeaks excitedly, "There he is! My future boyfriend!"

"That guy?" Justin's eyes widen with incredulity as he looks at the person she's indicating. "That's Brad, the guy I'm competing against!"

"Hey, Brad! Can't wait for the concert!" Alex calls, adopting the ditzy, _ohmygosh, you're so cute_ attitude she uses when talking to a boy she likes.

"Hey, Alex!" Brad responds, then catches Teresa as she's about to walk past. "Oh, Mrs. Russo, let me help you with that. What kind of world would let someone as petite and delicate as you carry such a heavy box?"

"See?" Justin exclaims in disgust. "He's a kiss-up."

"He's not a kiss-up, he's just good at getting what he wants," Alex corrects. "That's one of the things we have in common."

He shakes his head. "That guy makes me so mad."

"Yeah, that's another thing we have in common," she says with a smirk, turning on her heels and opening the door to the lair.

**xXx**

The lesson on emotion potions is actually pretty interesting. Jerry uses an anger potion as an example, and he and Justin go from chatting calmly to yelling in each other's faces in two minutes flat. Even Alex seems engaged, putting down her doodling pen for a while to watch what's going on.

**xXx**

In school the next day, Brad is _infuriating_ – baking brownies for the _principal_, of all things! Justin has absolutely no chance of getting to go to the summit unless he can think up a counterattack, and fast.

"Guess what? It _is_ all about the schmoozing," he tells his sister glumly. They're standing in front of their lockers and he's waiting for her to grab her books.

"I know, but I have an idea about how I can get Brad to go to the concert with me."

"Why is it always about you?"

She shoots him a look, like she can't believe he's this dense. "If I can get Brad to go to the concert with me that means he'll drop out of the summit and you'll be a shoo-in."

_Ohhh._ Wow, that is a pretty good idea, he has to admit, and very unlike most of Alex's ideas in that he actually supports it. "…Are we on the same side?"

"It's a little creepy, but I think we are," she affirms. "Here's the plan: I'm going to split a love potion with Brad. He'll be so in love with me that he'll be dying to go to the concert."

Justin's appalled. "We can't do that! We're not supposed to use magic unsupervised!"

"You'll supervise me, I'll supervise you," she shoots back matter-of-factly. "How is that unsupervised?"

He knows she's just playing with semantics to suit her purposes and that this is _totally against Dad's rules_, but he wants to beat Brad so much it hurts. His conscience is fighting a losing battle against his competitive streak, and he knows it. He sighs. "It'll have to do for now."

**xXx**

It's mid-afternoon when Justin comes out of the lair and into the Sub Station. As he moves to put on his apron, he catches sight of a couple of glasses sitting on the sideboard.

"Hey, Dad?" he calls to his father, who's manning the till. "Whose drinks are these?"

Jerry pokes his head through the serving hatch. "Alex's, but I don't think she took more than a sip and I have no idea who the other one's for. Now she's busy taking that _Brad_boy's order, so God only knows how long she'll leave them sitting there." He rolls his eyes. "Take it, if you want. I'm sure she won't mind."

Justin eyes the levels of liquid in both glasses. One seems fractionally fuller than the other, so he selects it and has downed about half a glassful by the time Alex comes back. She takes one look at him and he knows something's wrong.

"That's not…" She seems so horrified that she needs to stop and take a deep breath before trying the sentence again. "Where did you find that?"

"It was sitting right there," Justin answers, indicating the empty space next to the other glass. "Dad didn't expect you to be coming back for a while." He sighs. "Well, you obviously know Brad's here, and I guess now is as good a time as any. Want me to go get the love potion?"

Alex's eyes have grown huge. "Wait. No, Justin, you are _not_ telling me that you just drank from that glass, are you? Like. You're not. You can't be."

"I… am?"

She mouths something very rude, but no sound comes out.

"Alex!"

"No, Justin, you don't understand! I got sick of waiting for you to finish your stupid extra credit assignment for Dad so I went ahead and prepared the drinks by myself!"

Justin still doesn't see what the big deal is. "Okay… Did you give him his yet?"

"No!" she hisses. "I was about to come and get it, but _someone_ beat me to it."

"Wait, but. I drank out of it."

Oh. _Oh_.

"_I know._"

The panic rises in his stomach. "Did you have any of yours yet? Dad said he thought you might have, but if you didn't then –"

"_Yes_, I had some of it!" She looks positively sick. "What does that mean, Justin? If two siblings drink the love potion, does it work the same way as it usually does or do our genes, like, overrule it or something?"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Justin says frantically. He's pretty sure their father mentioned it in yesterday's lesson, but panic has a way of making you forget everything you think you're sure of.

"Well, find out!" she snaps. "You're the smart one!"

He scowls at her and leans through the door separating the kitchen and the main part of the sub shop. "Um, Dad?"

"What is it, Justin? I'm busy out here."

"Oh, I just had a question about the extra credit assignment," he says faux-casually, praying his father won't pick up on it, but Jerry merely looks pleased he's so interested.

"Go ahead." He nods at the patrons sitting at tables behind him. "Just keep your voice down."

"That won't be a problem," Justin assures fervently, trying his damnedest to fight the hysterical laughter rising in his throat. "Um, so, what happens if the people who drink the love potion are related? I mean, I know the anger potion worked on you and me yesterday, but is the love potion different because it's, you know, love?"

"Oh, the potions have the same effect on everyone," Jerry says matter-of-factly. "Good question, though. I'm glad to see you're thinking about what you're learning in class."

Sensing that the laughter is about to bubble over, Justin swallows hard. "I, um. Yeah. Thinking."

"You know, you didn't have to go into this much detail with your essay, I just wanted you to –"

"Oh, I know!" Justin responds hurriedly. "I was just interested, that's all. Thanks, Dad."

"You're welcome!" comes the cheerful response. When Justin turns around, Alex has her head in her hands.

"What are we going to do?" she wails.

Justin takes a deep, calming breath. It doesn't help. "I don't care what Dad says, there has to be some kind of safeguard for these potions. I can't imagine that the people of the wizard world would just –" Abruptly, he stops talking.

"…Justin?"

"Heyyy." He smoothes his hair self-consciously. "Hey, Alex, you look really… did you do something different with your hair?"

She stares at him in abject horror. "Justin, it's starting to – whoa."

"Whoa?"

She sidles over and thumbs the bottom hem of his orange sweater. "I never noticed before, but that's a really good color on you." She's using the tone that's been reserved for Brad as of late. "Brings out your eyes."

Justin blushes automatically and tries to fight the fluttery feeling in his stomach. "Oh, man. Alex, this… this is not good."

"I know." She looks down at herself and then back up at him, confused. "It's like part of me is totally grossed out, but the other part…"

"Feels it anyway," he finishes, shaking his head. "What are we going to do?"

"Either stay really far away from each other or, um." She rests her hand on his waist and tilts her head coquettishly upwards. "You know, make out."

Justin's so shocked that he inhales quickly enough to make himself cough, and Alex bites her lip and steps away.

"Dad is _right there_," he hisses, indicating the wall beyond which their father is standing.

Alex toes at the edge of the counter. "I know, I know, I just… I can't help myself."

"We should stay in our rooms until this is over," he says definitively to the floor because he's afraid to look at his sister. "Do you remember how long Dad said the effects of the potion last?"

"You're asking me? Justin, I barely remember _being_ in class yesterday, let alone what happened."

"…Good point." Usually Alex's lackadaisical attitude towards their wizarding lessons would get on his nerves, but now he finds it almost… endearing? Wow, he really is in deep. "Okay, I'll go into the lair and do some research, you… go flirt with Brad or something, I don't know. Make a big deal about avoiding your homework. In other words, act normal."

"But Justin," Alex protests, voice soft and filled with hurt. "_You're_ the only one I want."

His heart lurches inside his chest and he knows, _knows_ these feelings aren't real, that they're both under a spell, that's all, but damn if he doesn't want to bend his sister over the countertop right now and –

"Just do it, Alex," he barks, before fleeing to the comfort of the lair and locking the door behind him.

**xXx**

For the first time in his life, Justin Russo is watching hardcore porn.

It wasn't a conscious decision as much as one born of the near-crippling helplessness that washed over him when the World Wide Wizard Web informed him that love potions can take as long as several days to wear off. These pictures were floating around in his head of him and Alex doing… yeah, and that was severely inappropriate on many levels, so he figured if he watched other people, he might end up focusing on them instead of his sister.

…It doesn't work. All the videos he chooses somehow turn out to feature lithe brunettes who bear more than a passing resemblance to –

"Alex?"

Justin slams the laptop shut a millisecond before his father enters the lair, repositioning his legs to hide his erection.

"Hi, Justin. Have you seen your sister?"

"No, should I have? Well, I haven't. Not at all, no, sir. And no-one who looks like her either. Especially not naked."

"Um…"

"Ha!" he practically yells, trying to cover his mistake. "Ha ha ha! Especially not naked! Have you heard that one yet? All the kids are saying it! It's the new 'That's what she said'!"

Jerry blinks at him. "That's what who said?"

"Never mind. Um, I hope you don't mind, but I was using the laptop to do some research for my essay."

"That's fine. How are you doing with it?"

"It's coming." He blushes bright red as he catches himself, hurriedly adding, "_Along_. Coming along."

"Oookay." Jerry looks at him a little bewilderedly, scratching his head. "Listen, Justin, it might be a good idea to take some time off from studying for a while. What do you say? Go spend some time with Alex – help her with her homework or something. We both know she needs it."

Justin chuckles awkwardly, trying to ignore the insistent throb in his groin. "Yeah, she definitely needs it. Um, the help. Okay, sure, see you later, Dad. See you at dinner. Nice, normal family dinner – woohoo!"

He pumps his fist and stands, smoothing his shirttails over the bulge between his legs. As he leaves the room, he can hear his father muttering something about academic overload and their wizarding curriculum perhaps being too rigorous.

**xXx**

Justin really doesn't intend to see Alex at all. He hangs around in the sub shop until his mother chastises him for being underfoot, at which point he moves to Max's room and helps him with his homework, which is mostly pathetically easy middle school math that doesn't take long at all.

"How do you _do_ that?" Max asks reverently, staring at the sheet of completed problems with an amazed look on his face. "It takes me ten minutes to figure out _one_ of those."

Justin opens his mouth to reply but the words die on his lips as Alex walks in.

"Hey, Max, what are you – oh." She stops in her tracks when she sees Justin. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Hey, Alex," Max says, completely oblivious. "Justin helped me with my homework so I finished way ahead of schedule. I'm gonna go watch 'Icevarks' now. Wanna come?"

Alex makes a face. "Um, no."

Max shrugs. "Suit yourself. Justin?"

"Sure!" Justin agrees, glad of the excuse to get away from Alex. He rises from his position of kneeling next to his brother's desk chair and prepares to follow, but Alex glares at him so fiercely that he freezes.

"I…" He gulps. "I'll come down in a minute, Max, okay?"

"Okay!"

And with that, Max skips off down the stairs, leaving his siblings to their own devices. Justin clears his throat.

"So…"

Alex approaches him wordlessly. This isn't unusual in itself, except for the look in her eyes and the fact that she grabs his shirt collar, kicks the door closed behind her and pushes him onto Max's bed.

"Alex, are you out of your -?"

He never gets to finish his sentence because Alex presses her mouth to his and suddenly it's all he can do not to moan in pleasure. He's still kind of turned on from those stupid pornos and to have her on top of him, warm and eager and _real_, isn't really helping. Hesitant at first, he parts his lips, slipping his tongue into his sister's mouth. She likes that, he can tell. He loses himself in kissing her for a few minutes until she rubs up against him in _just_ the right way and suddenly the raging hard-on from earlier is back in full force.

"We… we shouldn't," he murmurs, and she pulls away just long enough for him to think he might have gotten through to her. "Alex?"

"How far did you get with Miranda, exactly?"

"Um." He feels his cheeks growing hot. "We kissed."

"That's what I thought." She slips her hands underneath his shirt, smooth palms grazing his chest.

"Alex…" he says warningly. He sincerely means to tell her to stop but what comes out of his mouth is, "Why, do you want to go further?"

She grins and dips down again in answer, attaching her lips to her brother's neck. He can't help but shudder at how good it feels. Somehow she gets his sweater and shirt off, stripping down to her bra in the process, and her chest is… wow. He wants to reach forward and unhook the only thing separating him from her – he just wants to _feel_ her – but he shouldn't, he really shouldn't.

She kisses down to his chest, swirling her tongue around his belly button, grasping lightly at his hipbones. When she lifts her head to look at him, her eyes are sparkling.

"Will you let me, um, take off your pants?"

He knows everything that's happening isn't really their fault (they're under a spell, after all) but that doesn't mean he won't feel guilty for the rest of his – "Yeah. Yeah, okay." There's no way he can say no to this, not when she's got that look on her face. She beams like she's won the Lottery, working his zipper open and letting out a laugh.

"What?" he gasps out, and then remembers he's wearing his Transformers boxers. "Okay, never mind, just..."

He leaves the sentence unfinished on purpose, but knows she understands what he means. Soon he feels a sharp tug accompanied by the feeling of fabric slipping away, sliding off. The cool air hits him and he hardens further, if that's even possible. He barely has time to get used to this before a new sensation, hot and wet, encircles him, and he gasps and throws his head back against the pillow because it's his _sister_ and it's _wrong_ and it's _right_.

**xXx**

They barely look at each other during dinner. Their mother ventures to ask what the matter is at one point and they both blurt out something that most likely makes very little sense. Before she has a chance to question them further, Max inadvertently yet miraculously lets it slip that Justin basically did all of his math homework, and then Justin has far bigger problems.

**xXx**

Their punishments are as follows: Max has to rip the offending pages out of his math workbook and re-do all the exercises by himself, while Justin has to write an additional two pages of his extra credit essay – although as Alex points out, homework for Justin isn't really a punishment at all. It is when he has that World Summit thing to write, though.

It's almost midnight and Justin's too keyed up to sleep. He's sitting at his desk, right in the middle of citing this ridiculously verbose article on the dangers of emotion potions (which, thanks, but he sort of knows enough first-hand) when there's a knock at his door. Before he has the chance to get up, it cracks open and Alex peeks in.

"Can we talk?" she whispers.

Justin sighs. "Yeah. Yeah, we need to. Um. Come in, close the door. Be quiet."

It's weird to be this formal with his sister but the dynamic's completely changed between them since… _it_. Justin doesn't quite know how to react to her anymore, especially as the effects of the potion are still coursing through his system. He sits next to her on the bed in spite of everything, for the simple reason that he kind of can't help himself.

"Look, Alex –"

"Hear me out, okay?" She pulls a scrap of paper out of her jeans pocket and smoothes it out, peers down at it. "Listen, I did some research and I found this… spell."

"Wait a second – _you?_ Did _research?_" Justin can't believe his ears. "Are you feeling okay?"

She rolls her eyes and tackles him playfully, the same way she does every time he makes fun of her, but his body responds differently this time and she notices. "Justin?"

"Sorry." Justin's cheeks feel hot all of a sudden, and part of him really wishes she'd get off from on top of him while the other part just wants her to _get_ him off. He can't look at her as he tells her firmly, "We can't do this again, Alex, I. I know this is awful to say, but next time I think I'd want to, um, go further, and we really, really can't. We've done too much already."

"But I _want_ to, Justin," she says intensely, "and I trust you so much. I don't think it's just this stupid love potion either. All I know is, I can't think of anyone better for, you know, my first time."

It's not like he hasn't been thinking about it, but actually hearing the words out loud sends a tingle right through Justin's body. "We can't," he repeats lamely, but without conviction.

"Will you please just listen to me for a second?"

He nods.

"What if there was some way we could do what we wanted and not feel bad about it afterwards?" She sounds triumphant, like she knows something Justin doesn't, and he just blinks at her.

"That's not going to happen," he says slowly, as if talking to a child. "This is bad, Alex. It will never be okay. It won't ever be acceptable, so we just. We can't do it."

Her eyes glitter. "But I found a spell."

Justin leans back against the wall. "Typical. This is typical Alex right now. You don't pick up a wizarding book in your life and the day you decide to change that is the day you find a 'Fuck your brother without feeling guilty' spell."

"Justin!" Alex gasps, eyes wide as she giggles. She's so young, his sister. She talks a big game sometimes, but swear in front of her and she'll end up blushing like the schoolgirl she is. "And it's not that kind of spell, although I doubt one of those even _exists_." She makes a face at him. "It's a forgetting spell."

"A forgetting spell," Justin repeats flatly.

"Yeah, as in… you say it and it makes you forget the last thing you did. The last chain of events, or something."

Justin stares at her. "Are you…? Give me that." She hands it over. Turns out it's legit. You could knock him over with a feather because the only thing that's helped him to restrain the effects of the love potion is the awful knowledge that the guilt would follow him for the rest of his life. He'd never be able to look at his baby sister again without... But now there's a way out of that, the reluctance floats away like a balloon without a string.

"Does this mean–" Alex begins, but he lunges forward and kisses her sharply, swallowing the rest of her sentence.

"Shut up," he growls. His fingertips dance around the bottom hem of her shirt, slipping underneath to touch his sister's soft skin as he adds more softly, "Let's enjoy it while it lasts."

**xXx**

It's not that he doubts the effectiveness of the spell; rather, he honestly can't fathom ever being able to forget the expression Alex makes when he slides inside her, the muffled sound of her gasp, the way her hips press forward against his. He's pretty sure the image of what she looks like when she climaxes will be seared into his brain for all time.

She lies panting in his arms, sated, sleepy, warm and delicate. "I guess," she says slowly, running her index finger idly up and down his chest, voice just a little bit shaky, "I guess it's time to say the spell."

Her words make Justin's soul hurt. Truth be told, by now he's convinced there's more to this than just the potion. The potion incited more of a lust thing, a shallow thing, and he knows this is bizarre but he's confident he can tell the difference between the effects of that and the effects of this. This is real, he'll bet his life on it.

"One more minute," but that awful dread settles in his stomach even as he says the words. He knows they can't afford that, knows it'll be worse the longer they put it off.

"Don't make this harder than it is."

Without another word she sits up, puts on her clothes and leans down to kiss him briefly before tiptoeing away. She slips out of the room and leans her head against the wall outside, murmuring "Cerebellum erasus" with her hand still on the doorknob.

He's in the middle of wondering if they'll ever find their way back to this point when his mind goes blank.

**xXx**

"Justin?"

"Alex?" For some reason his sister has wandered into his room and is now standing at the end of his bed without any explanation. It feels like he just woke up from a dream or something, and seeing as he's lying down, that's probably what happened. "What are you doing in my room?"

"I'm not sure," she says slowly, sounding confused. "I… maybe I was going to the bathroom or something. That's weird."

"Yeah…" Justin muses, although there's something indefinable tugging at his mind that says there's more to it. "Well, goodnight, I guess."

"'Night," Alex responds, still looking a little dazed as she turns to leave. When the door shuts behind her, Justin gets the distinct, persistent feeling that _something's missing_. He shakes his head, chalks it up to tiredness, and falls asleep.


End file.
